


it doesn't change anything

by orphan_account



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bi Mike Wheeler, M/M, aka what would be mike wheelers life if i had my way lmao, idk this is a mess my dears, its about him growing into the bi mess he is, other relationships implied but barely lmao theyre not relevent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 03:15:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13538511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: For Mike, it doesn’t really change anything. He has this sudden moment of realization that yes, he does like girls and boys, but it doesn’t change anything. He knows most people wouldn’t accept this, wouldn’t accept him, or even believe he could like both, but he can’t change the world’s collective mind, can he? He thinks he’ll just have to give up on any opportunity with any boy and that’ll be it. Maybe he’ll find a nice girl to go out with, and he can forget all about this, about liking boys....That isn't what happens.





	it doesn't change anything

For Mike, it doesn’t really change anything. He has this sudden moment of realization that yes, he does like girls and boys, but it doesn’t change anything. He knows most people wouldn’t accept this, wouldn’t accept him, or even believe he could like both, but he can’t change the world’s collective mind, can he? He thinks he’ll just have to give up on any opportunity with any boy and that’ll be it. Maybe he’ll find a nice girl to go out with, and he can forget all about this, about liking boys.

 

He’s happy when Will comes out, of course. They’re 16, hanging out after school, when he tells them he wants to talk to them all.He has something important to tell them, he says. They’re all confused, and for a moment, Mike thinks it has something to do with the Upside Down. But Will would’ve told them, told him, much earlier right?  
They go to Will’s house, which is empty except for them. Both Joyce and Jim, who lives with them now (El does too, of course), are at work. Mike knows Will’s mom is still worried about her youngest son being left alone sometimes, but she learned to let her son have some space of his own after a while. 

They stay in the livingroom, and make themselves comfortable. Will sits on one end of the couch, somehow looking smaller than he has for months. Mike feels like he just swallowed ice cubes, cold settling in his stomach. He’s starting to feel anxious, Will hasn’t acted like that in a long time now.  
El sits next to him so quickly she may just as well have teleported there, bouncing a little, and takes his hand in hers. Will smiles up a bit at her, and she smiles back. The corners of Mike’s mouth lift up a little bit, a tender smile making a brief appearance at his friend’s sibling relationship.  
Max sits next to her, and takes her hand too. They exchange a smile too. It somehow seems different, their relationship looks different, when compared to El and Will’s. He thinks there may be more, but he’s not sure and won’t push. It’s not like he can even say anything, really. He doesn’t even know what he could say. He thinks of Billy, of what Max has told them of her stepfather, and understands. 

Dustin manages to find a place next to Max, bouncing on the couch with a huge smile. Lucas seemed to know everyone would try to find a place on the couch and instead went to get a chair from the kitchen table. He sits backwards on it in, close to Dustin and looking in Will’s direction, resting his arms on the back of the chair. He eventually puts his head on his left arm, his right dangling and brushing against Dustin’s to his right. Dustin quickly looks at him with a tender gaze and looks back just in time to miss Lucas throwing him a goofy smile. Idiots, Mike thinks. And somehow he’s the oblivious one?  
Mike decides to just sit on the floor, next to Will’s feet, looking up at him from the side.  
His best friend seems pretty anxious, and is picking at his pants. For a moment, Mike contemplates taking his other hand, but doesn’t do it. It’d be awkward, right?

Everyone is waiting, but Will doesn’t say anything, if anything growing more and more anxious the longer everyone’s attention is on him. Mike sees him open his mouth, like the words are fighting to get out, before closing it again. They both jump when they hear Dustin’s voice.

“So, you wanted to tell us something, right?” he says. It doesn’t sound like the question it’s supposed to be, because they all know that it’s why they’re here and not at the arcade in the first place. Mike is glad Dustin spoke up.  
Will clears his throat. 

“Uh, yeah, I did.” he answers, his voice shaking slightly. No one says anything about the uncertainty in his voice.

“Mom, Jonathan, Jim and El already know, but uh.” he continues. Mike can see El squeeze her brother’s hand in the corner of his eyes, but his attention is on Will right now.

“It won’t change anything for us but, I guess you guys deserved to know that, uh. I like boys?” he finally says, sounding more like he’s asking himself a question than like he’s coming out to his friends. Mike hears Max snort, and as he’s ready to get mad at her, she speaks up.

“Is that it? Shit, I thought something was wrong for a moment” she jests, a smile on her freckled face. Mike sees an hesitant smile start appearing on Will’s face.

“Yeah Will, you scared us!” Dustin adds, beaming at his friend.

“Come on man, as if it’d change anything” Lucas says, lightly rolling his eyes out of playful amusement. Will’s smile has kept growing, relieved and touched, and Mike realizes all the cold that had settled in his stomach had disappeared, replaced by a pleasant warmth. He can’t even begin to imagine how Will feels like. That thought reminds him he hasn’t said anything yet, so he reaches up to hold Will’s hand.

“It’s okay,” he asserts, maintaining eye contact with Will who has turned to him the moment he felt him take his hand. “It’s okay.” he insists.  
He may have repeated himself, but Will seems to have gotten what he meant, his eyes shining, a shy smile on his face. 

Mike realizes everyone has been watching them, and quickly looks away, feeling heat rise up his cheeks. He doesn’t let go of Will’s hand.

“So, do you think we still have time to go to the arcade?” Dustin asks after a certain time, still smiling. Immediately everyone starts bickering, even though Mike is pretty sure there is no reason for that. Being surrounded by his friends will always be the best feeling in the world, to him. 

 

Realizing he likes, likes, Will happens soon after. He doesn’t know if it has any correlation to Will coming out, but he’s finished going to his locker, going to Will’s own locker when he sees him and goes oh. He’s always had so much affection for his best friend that he doesn’t know when its nature changed from friendly to romantic, or if it was ever completely platonic. Has he had a crush on hus best friend since kindergarten, he asks himself.  
Will closes his locker and looks up at him, and he realizes it doesn’t matter. He likes Will.

He doesn’t really know what to do with this. He can be pretty impulsive, but he’s always tried to… kind of ignore the whole liking girls and boys thing. Except now he realizes he really likes a boy, his best friend. He should probably not doing anything about this, he decides. It’ll pass, right? 

“Mike?? Mike are you ok?” asks Will, a crease in his brows and his voice lower than usual out of worry. Mike jumps slightly, and realises he’d been spacing out. He looks down at Will, his pretty eyes and his soft hair, and swallows.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright.” 

 

Mike has always been impulsive. His friends are in trouble? He’s helping before even knowing what the problem is. Anyone tries anything against them, he’s ready to fight back, even if he doesn’t even know how. When he had a crush on El, he kissed her before even asking himself if it was a good idea.  
He’s… not really used to having to think a long time about stuff if he can do anything about it on the moment. Which is why his feelings on Will make him panic. It was easy to ignore he also liked boys, but ignoring he liked his best friend? Not easy.  
Not easy because, well. He kind of really wants to kiss him, to the point that sometimes he gets caught just staring at Will. It’s pretty embarrassing, and his blush every time someone makes a remark about it even more so.

He really wants to do something about it, he does! But.. it’s scary, and everything was going so well when he was just pretending to only like girls. He’s not as brave as Will, he doesn't want to come out.  
The truth is, it’s not even that he’s not as brave as Will (even if he does think it’s true, and that Will is the bravest person he knows). It’s that he doesn’t have a family like Will’s.  
He loves his family, he does! But he doesn’t think his parents would accept… that, whatever he is. He isn’t too worried about Nancy, he thinks, but his father is another story. As for his mom, he just doesn’t know. He knows she cares about him, about them, her children, but he doesn’t understand her.

Everytime he thinks about telling Will, or doing something, anything, his thought go back to his parents and he freezes. Maybe not doing anything is for the best.

 

The next time something happens, it’s on a december afternoon. It’s the first snow of this year’s winter and well, they might have grown up a bit but they’re still children in many ways. After school and since it’s friday, they go to Mike’s for a D&D campaign but can’t help themselves and start playing a bit in front of the house. A snowball fight begins.  
At first, it’s to each their own. Eventually, two sides are made: Dustin, Lucas and Max, against El, Mike and Will. They’re crouching behind little heaps of snow put up as poorly made walls, having fun, throwing snow at each other, when Mike looks to his left, at Will, and goes oh. 

Will is laughing, and suddenly his voice is all Mike can hear. His eyes are shining, and suddenly he’s all Mike can see. Mike can feel his arm, that was previously raised to throw a snowball at Dustin as revenge, slowly lower on its own.  
For a second, this moment feels so much longer than it actually is, like Mike will forever be at Will’s side, admiring his best friends’ existence, appreciating the fact that he saw this boy alone on the swing all those years ago, aware of how lucky he is that when he asked, said boy said yes and became his friend.

Then, Will gets a snowball thrown in his face.  
He splutters, laughing even harder, and Mike vaguely overhears Max yell a quick sorry from over the other side of the battlefield.  
Will shakes his head to get the snow off his face, pressing his bare hands to his cheeks, when he notices Mike staring at him.

“Mike? What is it? Do I still have snow in my hair?”

The spell that was on Mike is broken, and he quickly shakes his head, a no! escaping his mouth a little too quickly, and he sincerely hopes Will will think his cheeks are reddening because of the cold.  
Will smiles brightly, and Mike’s heart misses a beat.

“My face is so cold now! I can’t feel my cheeks,” he laughs “look!”

He quickly catches Mike’s hands, and thoughtlessly puts each of them on one of his cheeks. If Mike’s heart had missed a beat before, now surely it’s beating way too fast. He’s not even sure he’s breathing at this point. 

His hands are holding Will’s face which is very, oh so very close to him, and if that moment before was long, this one is eternal.

Will’s lashes flutter as he blinks, looking up at Mike, and Mike feels his thumbs caress the other boy’s cheeks, soft and red from the cold, and he wants to kiss him. He wants to kiss him so bad. 

He’s going to, leaning in to brush his lips quickly and tenderly against Will’s, when he’s hit by a snowball.

He releases a surprised breath. Laughter erupts around him, Will included, and he hears his voice, amused and seemingly oblivious to what would have happened.

“Max!!” 

Her answer is quick to come.

“What? You guys aren’t even paying attention!” 

“Oh really? We’ll see about that!”

Mike sees Will’s gaze turn mischievous, and sees him grab one of his pre-made snowballs and hurl it at Max. She dodges, but the fight is far from over.  
Mike doesn’t really go back to the snowball fight, looking down at his knees. He feels lightheaded, and he’s not sure why.

 

A little time passes, and he realizes something. It’s true that he doesn’t think it would go well with his family if they knew about… it. However, it just means they can’t learn about it. He’s still… him. He’s Mike Wheeler, a boy who likes both girls and boys, and it’s ok. He won’t tell his parents for as long as he’ll live under their roof, and he’ll see what he’ll do once he’s out, whenever that happens. He prioritizes his safety, but that doesn’t mean he can’t tell Will, can’t tell his friends.  
He trusts and loves thems with all of his heart, and he knows his “secret” would be safe with them. And, well.

More than anything, he wants to confess to Will. 

He loves him.

 

In the end, he does confess to Will. He proposes a sleepover, just the two of them, at Mike’s house. Since it’s just the two of them, Will will sleep in a spare mattress next to Mike’s in his bedroom. After dinner, they go the basement and play some video games for a while. Quickly though, his mom ushers them to bed. All of them know that they won’t be going to bed right now, but it means they’ll be left alone in Mike’s room. It means he’s… he’s going to confess.  
He feels like he can fly and like he has lead in his stomach at the same time. He could do anything and at the same time he feels frozen, unable to move.  
They’re sitting, each boy on his own mattress, Will looking up at him as usual (and while physically Will has always looked up to Mike, height differences and all, Mike feels like no one will ever look up to someone the way he looks up to his best friend). He has a weird look on his face that Mike doesn’t know how to interpret.  
Mike sees Will lower his gaze, playing with a loose thread of his pajama pants, and opens his mouth. He’s ready to confess.

“Will, uh”

Will looks up quickly, the thread he was playing with forgotten.

“...did you know i still have all the drawing you gave me when we were kids?”

Mike is not ready to confess. He’s both mad at himself and impressed by the way he found another topic to talk about.

“Wait, really? No way” 

Will seems genuinely surprised. Mike doesn’t get it, really. Why wouldn’t he? He’s never thrown a drawing Will has given him and probably never would. He loves them! He thinks Will is really talented, and he loved looking back at all the drawings he did.  
It’s also maybe because they were made for Mike. The fact that his best friend would draw for him, with him in mind… Mike feels warmth spread through his body at the thought. He has the greatest friends, doesn’t he. 

“Yeah. You’re really talented Will, you’re just-. You’re just.. great.” Mike sees Will blink in surprise at his words and suddenly he can’t stop talking. “You’re so nice, and kind, and fair, and you never cheat in a campaign and you always share anything you can, you’re such a positive influence in my life. And you’re also brave, and even if you never attack first that doesn’t mean you won't defend yourself if you have to, you’re so strong, and you’re always trying your best, and you’re so much fun to be with, you- You’re you. And I like that. I like you.” Mike sees Will open his mouth and pushes on before he can say anything. “And, and I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m so glad to have met you, and I’m so glad I asked you to be my friend, and I’m so glad you said yes. It was the best decision of my life, and I guess what I’m trying to say is that I like you. I...I really, really like you, and I have for a while I think.” He hesitates a moment before mumbling, looking to the side nervously “...I love you”

“...Mike, thats-” Mike looks up, and he doesn’t know if he’s apprehensive or hopeful.

“I… Me too. I.. I like you too. Love. I love you too.” Will accompanies his words with a small yet amazingly tender smile, and Mike feels like he was actually underwater this whole time and now only can he finally breathe.

“O-Oh. ...Okay” he hesitates, nervous.

“Okay” Will’s smile gets even brighter, and Mike finds himself smiling back at him. That simple, huh? He feels a little silly when he thinks of how nervous he was before.

 

That night, they don’t do anything differently, really. But if, when they fall asleep, they’re holding hands, well, no one else would know. 

The day after, when Will has packed his things to go back home and just before Jonathan arrives to pick him up, they kiss. 

 

They tell the others and Will’s family. Everyone is happy for them and Mike has never felt more accepted. He tells Nancy, and she tells him about herself Jonathan and Steve. If he felt accepted before, this makes him feel like he’s not alone, and he talks to Steve about it. They talk, and they’re bisexual, and while the term doesn’t change much, it’s nice to put a word on it.  
He doesn’t tell his parents.

When he goes off to college, he does tell them. His father doesn’t want to see him ever again, but he still keeps in contact with his mom. With Holly, too.  
He meets so many people, good and bad, and even people in between. He learns, and changes. A part of him doesn’t, still that loyal friend, and it’s probably the part his friends and Will love.

He stays with Will, and in 2015, so many years later, he and Will still love each other just as much. Actually, their love has matured, has grown through hardships and blessings alike, and it means more to them than anything. In front of their friends, of Will’s family and his mother and sisters, they get married.

**Author's Note:**

> yooooo how yall doing?? this is honestly a mess of feelings i had and had to get out of my system, somehow lmao. im not sure about, mostly bc of the pace lmao but oh well. idk if i might expend more on this (the morning after mike confessed? the partys reactions? mikes family? or even about the others?) ehh  
> thank you for reading, and as always kudos and comments are really encouraging! now imm just yeet myself outta here lmao bye!


End file.
